The Scott Kaleta (sp) crash at Englishtown a year or so ago was one of the worst things I ever watched.

2008. That's over four years ago.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

I remember this one in 1999, because I grew up only 20 miles from Laguna Seca and would go there frequently to watch racing. I remember seeing his crash on the local news that evening:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Fl1e79O1Y
Gonzalo Rodriguez crashed at the top of the corkscrew, not sure whether it was mechanical or if he simply didn't brake soon enough.

First one that comes to mind is Henry Surtees. Such a bizzare accident and it looks like the tire just misses him, but in fact it landed right on his head. What this young man's career would've been...http://youtu.be/0eHU5Bqe_4Q

Then there is the Shoya Tomizawa accident. This is very hard to watch, no gore, but very disturbing. He suffered severe stomach trauma.http://youtu.be/Q3PoUd3vT0s

I was watching that race on TV live when that happened. I was almost sick to my stomach. I knew immediately he was hurt real real bad. The worst is watching Edwards and Rossi react afterwards. At that point, you knew the score. So sad

This one always gets to me, it's the sheer desperation as Purley comes to terms with the fact he can't save his friend.

To be fair to the marshalls in this case, they were not wearing fire resistance suits like Purley was. It's a shame it takes situations like this to make people see that maybe a suit and tie is not good attire for someone who is expected to assist at the scene...

Originally Posted by 20aeman

No, the real enthusiast vehicle would be the RX8. It combines V12 Lamborghini gas mileage with Hyundai Genesis 4cyl. performance.

JD Mc Duffies' death was the worst one that I've seen live, it was extremely violent. It caused significant changes to the track to slow the cars down to a somewhat sane speed.

From wiki:

McDuffie was involved in an accident on the fifth lap of the 1991 Budweiser At The Glen race at Watkins Glen International. On the straight between the Esses and the Loop-Chute, at 170 mph, McDuffie and Jimmy Means touched wheels. McDuffie's driver's side outer tie rod end dropped from the front wheel spindle, which caused him to lose control of the position of the right side tire/wheel. Further, the impact caused the front wheel assembly to completely fall off the car, starting a chain reaction that resulted in all of McDuffie's brakes failing.

So in September of 1999 I rally with some buddies to Laguna Seca to catch CART. We show up at the track and were confused by total inactivity when there should have been a practice going on. Word soon filtered through that Gonzo had a bad and possibly fatal accident at the corkscrew. We couldn't believe it....first Krosnoff just a couple years back and now Gonzo. Greg Moore followed a scant 6 weeks afterwards. Awful.

I always wished I'd printed a copy of the practice session times when Gonzalo Rodriguez left us. He was turning heroic times in a bad Lola chassis that team Penske simply didn't have a handle on...way ahead of what Little Al was doing with it. What a shame, Gonzo had the potential to be a great one.

Edit - This was the incident that prompted Stefan Johanssen to quit CART at the end of that year.

Originally Posted by n0rdicalex.

this one affected me as a kid. i was a greg moore/players fan during the cart days, and when this happened it was hard to accept.

I was at Fontana for this, and despite an entire grandstand full of people the accident was shielded from view by the backstretch wall and motorhomes. The crowd was really rocking, this race was the championship showdown between Juan Montoya and Dario. After the wreck all we knew is that Greg Moore had stacked it in turn two, no news after that. I thought it was weird that the track screens didn't replay the wreck....they just kept showing an in-car feed from Mikey's car.

Anyway, after a while they fired up the copter, wheeled Greg into it and took off. At that point, the seriousness of it set in a little but we were all still assuming he was probably dinged up pretty good but still alive.

Then, in the middle of the race the flag was lowered to half mast and the whole place just deflated.

I stumbled upon a website a few years ago that was nothing but unedited raw footage of race crashes....all fatal. I joined the site because I am a little morbid but they had a member that went all CSI on the crashes and his breakdowns were very informative and revealing.

To be fair to the marshalls in this case, they were not wearing fire resistance suits like Purley was. It's a shame it takes situations like this to make people see that maybe a suit and tie is not good attire for someone who is expected to assist at the scene...

You have to remember that this was the early 70s and fire protection, even for drivers, was minimal at best. Even if the drivers were protected, you can see numerous cars drive by without stopping; their excuse was that they didn't see Purley's car parked off to the side and thought it was his own car that was on fire. There was also a fire truck parked nearby but, rather than drive against the flow of traffic, it did a full lap of the circuit before it could assist.

The marshalls were poorly equipped and less than willing to help. Fans tried to climb the barriers to assist but were beaten back by police. Williamson died from asphyxiation. He could have been saved if someone other than Purley had helped to extract him from the car. The absolute worst part of all this is that Purley recalls that he could hear Williamson pleading for help inside the burning car.

I'm not sure, but from the looks of it I'd surmise left front tire or suspension failure. He was clearly out of the gas before he hit the hill, which probably eliminates stuck throttle.

Who knows, maybe someone can fill in the blanks here.

I don't know what happened, but I wouldn't rule out a driver's mistake, like mistaking a corner for another. You might know the crazy Lancia Delta S4 that races in the Berg-Cup circuit, just like Plasa, and his driver, Bruno Ianniello, crashed his Delta pretty bad in a race in Luxembourg. His explanation was: "I thought it was the corner you can take with the throttle fully opened, but that's the next corner..."

Sad thread... I am somewhat happy there aren't vids or pictures of Cevert's crash as it really has to be an ugly sight. Wasn't this the crash that made Jackie Stewart retire from racing?